Back to the old Hunting grounds...

Helena and I have returned to Weymouth to our old speed-sailing hunting grounds. The International Moth class have just finished their World Championships here and it was great, as always, to see them in action. The weather was pretty wild there for awhile and they were kept of the water for the first four or so days. Good ol' Weymouth. Whilst Namibia offers conditions a multitude of times better and more consistent... I would still love to bring VESTAS SAILROCKET back here to have a crack at setting the first 40+ knot run in Portland Harbour. That would be very cool.

So we brought some of the necessary equipment back to get modified to allow some new sensors to be added to the skeg. PI RESEARCH are going to modify the existing wiring looms to accept a strain guage which should tell us a lot about how VESTAS SAILROCKET is balanced.

We have drawn up a new schedule for our next session down in Namibia and are contemplating the timing for booking a fully ratified record session with the WSSRC (governing body). I feel that we are in a pretty good position to do so and that we should be putting this sort of pressure on ourselves. We have spent a lot of time on this project and if there are any real BIG issues then we should be confronting them sooner rather than later.

Whilst this is all being worked on, Helena and I will head up to Bristol to work on yet another 'winged wonder'. Our friends at AIRBUS have nearly completed their new wing for their C-Class catamaran. We will go and give them all the help we can to get this amazing craft back on the water... but that's another story.

Britain has finally showed us some weather worthy of being classified as summer-ish so we will enjoy it while we can. We still aim to be back down in Walvis Bay in mid-early August. Friends have already e-mailed us to tell us that we have missed a couple of good days... but you get that. You can't get them all.

Meanwhile the Hydroptere team are waiting for some stronger winds to appear down in the Med. whilst the new 'Wotrocket' team have very optimistically booked the WSSRC for a record session next month! I openly admit that I still can't work that one out...

Cheers Paul